"How to make a Monster Manual Pt II" article

[charlesatan]

Felon: I think anyone when talking about a particular subject should have a thesis and in this case, that thesis is the D&D is combat. That's not to say that all D&D players will be combat oriented but you need to take a stance when talking about a certain point (and D&D is a game system that for the most part, promotes combat). I think they have cited examples in the podcast where out-of-the-box thinking is needed (i.e. collapsing the house on the eggs) and even RP encounters (i.e. the role of Elminister in a certain campaign).

Also, it was also cited that MMV is more of a supplement to MM1. I forgot who mentioned it in the podcast but they did cite that there's enough "mastermind" or do-it-all monsters in MM1. The MMV design philosophy actually isn't any different from the Miniatures Handbook monsters philosophy which is monsters that have a specific niche rather than a wide array of special abilities. (And at the end of the day, a good bulk of CR is computed by a monster's combat abilities. A doppelganger w/o class levels for example might make a good behind-the-scenes villain but when it comes right down to combat with high-level characters, it might need to rely on other resources such as brainwashed/blackmailed minions rather than its slam attack. Good opportunity for RP? Sure. A good combat encounter? Perhaps not for high-level PCs or not without backup.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

The classic example is the Mind Flayer.

A *great*, classic mastermind villain. Rich with world detail and possible plot hooks.

But kind of dead weight when it drops in a combat.

I don't see anything very wrong with turning the lens down the other pipe for a book, especially when we have enough monster books to populate a half-dozen galaxies.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well then maybe making a MM1 with only 100 well-detailed fully-rounded non-combat-abilities-gifted classic monsters, and all the following MMx having battle-fodder monsters designed around the 5-rounds paradigm could be a good compromise. Because maybe the same people that buy more and more monsters books are the same people that prefer the monsters more combat-focused (thus needing always new monsters), while DMs that prefer a more complex monster design don't usually need new monsters all the time (that's at least my case).

BTW, is it really so rare for you to have long combats? That's weird to me :\ Our combats tend to be as short as 5 rounds when you are facing 1 single enemy, but just as many times we have battles with 10+ enemies which last easily 10 rounds. Some of the best battles last year were in CotSQ against ~20 fire giants or ~20 various demons at the same time.

 

[green slime]

Not many. But I've had numerous "role-playing" encounters that lasted for much longer than that, in which "monsters" made good use of "useless" abilities.

I positively detest the direction they appear to be going in - that every monster's sole purpose should be just to appear, fight the PCs for 5 rounds, and be killed and looted. To be fair, this is a design paradigm that has been present in D&D since its conception, but it's not a design paradigm I enjoy.

I agree. I did not like the article, nor the drift which it seems to be promoting.

 

[Hussar]

Well then maybe making a MM1 with only 100 well-detailed fully-rounded non-combat-abilities-gifted classic monsters, and all the following MMx having battle-fodder monsters designed around the 5-rounds paradigm could be a good compromise. Because maybe the same people that buy more and more monsters books are the same people that prefer the monsters more combat-focused (thus needing always new monsters), while DMs that prefer a more complex monster design don't usually need new monsters all the time (that's at least my case).

BTW, is it really so rare for you to have long combats? That's weird to me :\ Our combats tend to be as short as 5 rounds when you are facing 1 single enemy, but just as many times we have battles with 10+ enemies which last easily 10 rounds. Some of the best battles last year were in CotSQ against ~20 fire giants or ~20 various demons at the same time.

You regularly run combats with 10+ enemies and then wonder why you fall outside the norm? Take a look at pretty much every Dungeon adventure for the past couple of years - you very, very rarely find more than a half dozen baddies in any single encounter.

Just out of curiousity, but, what level were your PC's to take on 20 fire giants at the same time?

I agree. I did not like the article, nor the drift which it seems to be promoting.

Again, is it promoting a drift as you say, or simply realizing a truth? My gut says that there are far more games out there for which the 5 round encounter is the norm than longer encounters. If, (and I do mean if) it's true that the average encounter is 5 rounds, why shouldn't they design to that? Why build square pegs to fill round holes?

 

[AllisterH]

Why can't we have the best of two worlds? Monster descriptions would have the following lines added.

COMBAT abilities: This would have Mearls' suggestion of no more than 5 combat SLA and basically, these would be the "standard" combat style of the creature. Thus, if you "JUST" want a beatdown, you would have at a quick glance, what the creature's preferred tactics would be.

Non-Combat abilities: This here would then list all the non-combat SLA available to the creature. These abilities can be used in combat by the creature, but generally speaking, the creature uses them outside of actual physical combat. In long-term appearances, these would then show up.

 

[MerricB]

I think Dave Noonan's comments are quite insightful.

The groups that want lots of ecological stuff will make most of it up on their own. A couple of hooks in the text, and they'll run with it. For those who want a monster to kill, it reduces focus. (Heck, it also occasionally limits those who follow text as written and find something that breaks in their world...)

Here's another secret: the simpler the monster, the easier it is to run lots of them. The number of times I've had 4 high-level spellcasting NPCs in a Paizo Adventure Path adventure... urgh.

A battle against 20 giants? Easy to run. 20 Vrock? Utter nightmare. You end up fudging details.

Cheers!

 

[Bad Paper]

High-five to Cheiromancer for bringing up the timely marilith:

Yesterday we finished a fight that we started a week ago. About halfway through yesterday's run, one of my players piped up with "why do people on the messageboards always say that combat lasts three rounds?"

It took something like four? five? hours of game time to finish one combat that lasted about twenty-two rounds.

There were five level 17 PCs against two mariliths, one pit fiend, and an elite advanced marilith/kyton. [some of you may be familiar with this last creature, and can figure out why mariliths and a pit fiend are fighting on the same side; otherwise, don't ask; I don't give out spoilers]

So anyway, there were a bajillion spell-like abilities going on, special attacks, grapples, trip attacks, you name it. It was a grueling battle to run as a DM, but I loved the variety, because I kept the PCs off balance.

If Noonan had written these creatures, they woulda been one-trick ponies by comparison.

Where is when you need it? Five rounds,

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Yesterday we finished a fight that we started a week ago.

And, honestly, how often do you do that?

5 rounds is right about spot-on for just about every [D&D] combat I've ever run. The ones which have run longer, generally, do so because I've designed the encounter to work in waves; thus, it isn't so much a single 20-round combat as 6 4-round combats that were run back to back (with a little overlap).

 

[Bad Paper]

And, honestly, how often do you do that?

More often than is healthy, but then again, I love that my bad guys actually get a lot of screen time.

The BBEG in this fight didn't really participate until the second half, as she spent almost the entire first half drinking potions. So that's kind of a wave, but not really.

Yes, this was the longest fight yet, but it is extremely rare to get one that lasts only five rounds! I've run a lot of them for ten or longer. Long combat yay! They should all be long!